


Yellow

by ElvaDeath



Series: The World of Asano Gakushuu [1]
Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Angst, Asano Gakuhou is a genuinely bad person, Asano Gakuhou's Bad Parenting, Asano Gakushuu Needs A Hug, Asano Gakushuu is Bad at Feelings, Asano Gakushuu-centric, Dark, Depressed Asano Gakushuu, Five Stages of Grief, Five Virtuosos - Freeform, Heavy Angst, High School, Plot Twists, Sakakibara Ren is a Good Friend, University, i will fight you on this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:09:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28528995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElvaDeath/pseuds/ElvaDeath
Summary: Everyone knows what happened. The moon blew up, the government sent a monster into a classroom of kids, and those kids killed it a year later. It sounds insane, but it's the truth.Right?(Please read the WARNINGS in the notes)- E.D.
Relationships: Akabane Karma/Asano Gakushuu
Series: The World of Asano Gakushuu [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1657669
Comments: 32
Kudos: 130





	1. Denial

**Author's Note:**

> One day God shall strike me down for these and I will have to answer for my crimes.
> 
> !! WARNINGS !!
> 
> As the official warnings will definitely be spoilers, please please read the ones I have below before starting the story, as I have not put them in the tags.
> 
> 1\. Triggering topics. If something is likely to trigger you, do NOT read this. There's nothing explicit, but this entire thing will contain topics I know people may not be comfortable with.
> 
> 2\. If you don't have triggers and decide to read this, make sure you back out at any point you start feeling uncomfortable. Don't carry on thinking it will stop referring to it at some point. It won't.
> 
> 3\. I'm usually careful about doing my research, but for this one, it has mostly been off the top of my head. Be aware that none of this is based off real life experience or any expertise, it is completely fictional, even if the issues that are discussed are real.
> 
> 4\. Referring to the last point, if you would like to correct me on anything, do not hesitate to do so. I hate the thought that I might spread misinformation, and I will correct myself in later notes if you tell me. I really do appreciate any input (as long as it's constructive, obviously, don't just yell at me).
> 
> !! WARNINGS !!

Gakushuu was fifteen years old when the yellow octopus creature that had blown up the moon was killed by Class 3-E.

~ ~ ~

Gakushuu was sixteen, on his first day of Kunugigaoka High School, when he first talked to Akabane about it.

“Your teacher, last year. What was he really like? I haven’t heard much, apart from the usual monster stories.”

Akabane winces, his hand tight around the carton of strawberry milk. “Why do you want to know, hm, second-place?”

Gakushuu stiffens at the teasing smirk aimed his way, even if it’s clearly a defence mechanism. “None of your business, Akabane.”

He remembers 3E on the night of their teacher’s death. The whole class had slept in their building, thick personalised books in front of each one. Gakushuu remembers seeing them through the trees, wondering if he should go up and talk to them, to offer some comfort.

He didn’t.

So he knows why Akabane wouldn’t want to talk about it. Grief is a wild, cruel thing. It turned his father insane; it can surely make a few young students quiet about it all. He doesn’t push.

~ ~ ~

Gakushuu was five when his father ripped up a drawing he made of his friend. All he wants is to show it to Ikeda. But his father becomes very quiet and very pale, and in a matter of seconds, the coloured paper litters the floor like confetti.

“Go to your room, Gakushuu. Don’t ever interrupt me like that again.”

Five-year-old Gakushuu stares at the blob of yellow on his page, eyes stinging and blurring with tears. He doesn’t know what he’s done wrong. He doesn’t understand why his father sounds so cold.

The temporary silence is broken when his father shouts. He never shouts. “Go! Get out! Get out of my office!”

Gakushuu jumps, tripping over his own feet as he stumbles out of the room. The door slams behind him, and he doesn’t know it yet, but that final door slam is enough to lock him out of his father’s heart forever.

~ ~ ~

Gakushuu was sixteen, in Biology class, when he saw a flash of yellow outside and mistook it for the octopus. It’s just a piece of paper. Some stupid paper aeroplane thrown out of the window by a student, bright yellow and feeble in the strong winds.

It makes him think of the teacher, though, and his fixed smile. The way his tentacles would wave about when he became excited. How there was always a little white drawing on the chalkboard when Gakushuu impressed him with an answer.

For one painfully tender moment, he misses the creature.

“Hey, Asano, pass this along.” Ren whispers beside him, shoving a slip of paper in his hand.

Gakushuu sighs, brought out of his daydreams. He passes the paper along, letting it continue on its way to a girl in the front row. “Are you actually paying attention to Mrs Ito at all?”

“Yes!” Ren hisses back, showing him a full page of notes on the anatomy of an octopus. Huh. No wonder he was thinking of the supercreature. “I hate these things. They creep me out.”

“Octopuses?” Gakushuu raises an eyebrow. “Must have been terrifying to learn that 3E had its very own.”

Ren only stares at him blankly.

“Their teacher.” Gakushuu huffs, internally rolling his eyes. He evidently needs new friends, if these ones are this slow.

“Their-?” Ren’s question is cut off by the bell. He still looks bewildered.

~ ~ ~

Gakushuu was fifteen when he met the octopus, Koro-Sensei. All he was doing was minding his own business, walking up the hill of his school. Ok, so, maybe he was creeping around 3E’s building to try to find out why they were suddenly doing so well. But he hadn’t expected to bump into…

A bright yellow octopus wearing teacher’s robes and a fixed beaming smile.

“Oh.” He breathes, staring up at the… thing. Gakushuu would have fainted, probably, if he wasn’t an Asano. Asanos don’t faint.

“...Ah.” The creature sighs.

They stare at each other for a second or two.

“I suppose we should talk about this, shouldn’t we?” The creature says faintly.

Gakushuu nods, praying to whatever god is out there that this is all a dream.

Spoiler: it isn’t. The creature gives him some hot chocolate, a biscuit, and a hint about raising teacher salaries before launching into his long spiel about the entire story. He leaves the biscuit and the hot chocolate, ignores the hint, and feels his soul leave his body as he listens attentively to the creature.

Surprisingly, the being who destroyed half of the fucking moon is actually rather sweet. Gakushuu is told to call him Koro-Sensei, which apparently is the name 3E gave him, and the creature has the courtesy of privately letting him sign the NDA without disclosing his new knowledge to the government. It’s a rather cute arrangement, actually. Gakushuu keeps quiet about Koro-Sensei, and Koro-Sensei tells him about 3E for half an hour sometime after school.

At first, Gakushuu doesn’t enjoy it at all. Koro-Sensei is slimy and far too bright about everything, constantly encouraging Gakushuu to do things he does not want to - like apologising to Class 3E, calling his minions ‘friends’, and taking a break from his constantly tight schedule. Gakushuu despises every moment he has to sit with the creature, discomfort crawling up his back.

Then he relaxes. Koro-Sensei listens to him, doesn’t judge him, in a way that is so unlike everyone else. He can rant about anyone or anything, and Koro-Sensei will not tell a soul. Even the creature’s slimy rubbery hugs become accepted and comforting after a while.

When his father stops Gakushuu from attending school lessons, Koro-Sensei takes up teaching him in their time together. It’s helpful and tailored to him in a way that the group lessons in 3A could never be, letting him race through subject after subject with ease and understanding. So he continues to learn from the creature, long after the exams are over and done with.

Maybe that’s why he misses him so much when he’s gone.

~ ~ ~

Gakushuu was sixteen when he took the trek up the hill, panting lightly by the time he reached the building. It’s abandoned now, not a person in sight. That doesn’t matter. He’s used to seeing it like this.

He wanders down the hallway, basking in the quiet noises of nature outside. Beautiful, just like Koro-Sensei used to say. Appreciate the natural beauty of the body, just as much as you appreciate the beauty of nature itself. Gakushuu snorts, reaching the door. He’s never been self conscious of his body, except in moments where he’s hated the way his eyes are his father’s.

The door slides open.

Everything is exactly as it was. The blackboard smudged with white chalk, desks neatly set out in rows, the windows looking out onto the forest. Gakushuu wanders through, fingers brushing against the wooden walls, nails scraping along the chalkboard. Koro-Sensei always hated when he did that. He wouldn’t shout at him, though. He never shouted at him.

“What are you doing here?”

Gakushuu turns. Akabane stands in the doorway, one hand on the frame, one eyebrow raised. He shouldn’t be surprised. Sometimes people process grief in the same way, wandering around the places of people they lose.

“Does it matter?” Gakushuu responds instead, sliding into the second seat of the front row. He always used to sit here, on their after school sessions.

“It matters to me.” Akabane strolls to the blackboard, grabbing the chalk and doodling a frowning face mindlessly. “Why would the school council president from 3-A come to the abandoned old 3-E classroom? When it’s a dangerous hike up the mountain. When you’ve never been here before.”

“I have.” He mutters. His hands rest on top of the desk, skin on wood, sinking in and clawing. The curve of his nails fit perfectly into the grooves he dug over months, tight pain carved into a desk, the physical show of his tearful rants about the crushing weight of his thoughts. “I’ve been here before.”

The chalk comes to a halt with a screech on the board. Birds cheep outside, filling the silence with their song.

“Did he… to you, too?”

Gakushuu looks up. Akabane’s back is turned to him, arm up and fingers crushing the chalk in his fist, body shaking. Grief. Painful, suppressing, silent grief.

“After school.” Gakushuu admits after a second or two passes. It makes no difference now, when the creature is dead and gone. The whole world could know and it wouldn’t change a single thing. He doesn’t know why he kept the entire thing a secret for so long.

Akabane lets out a choked laugh, shoulders shaking. “I’m sorry. He- I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Gakushuu drops his eyes back to the desk. He feels the faint trace of a tentacle on his hand. “His death wasn’t your fault.”

The chalk clatters to the floor. Akabane walks out in quick steps, the door sliding open roughly, wood on wood. “I wish it was.” The other boy growls, fury boiling his words to red-hot lava. “After everything he did.”

Then the other boy is gone, and Gakushuu is left to wonder what on earth Akabane means by that.

~ ~ ~

Gakushuu was nine when he met Ren, the brightest and kindest boy he knows. They sit together in class. He isn’t the smartest, admittedly, so Gakushuu has to keep him secret for a while. Ren laughs at him when he tells him that, saying he doesn’t care about whether or not Gakushuu’s dad likes him, only that they keep hanging out.

Ren admires him. Gakushuu knows all of the answers, is always the first to put his hand up, the last their teacher picks because he always says the right thing and ‘we need to give other people a chance, Asano’. Ren stares at him in awe when he explains things, even if Ren doesn’t understand a word of it, because he says it makes Gakushuu ‘shine’. Gakushuu practices in the mirror. He doesn’t know what Ren means. All he can see is his father reflected back at him, plus some baby fat.

Gakushuu doesn’t know why he wants to be friends with Ren. The other boy is a brainless idiot, a himbo, whose only worth seems to be in making the girls giggle. If Gakushuu’s father knew he was hanging around this fool, he would…

So Gakushuu pretends he has an after-school activity and drags Ren to an empty classroom. He tries to teach him. The first few sessions are a disaster, because Ren is far too distracted, but then Gakushuu realises what he’s been doing wrong.

He teaches Ren like he would teach himself; desperate, cramming hours of work into a few minutes, body-slamming into the hardest questions until they feel mentally battered and bruised. Ren cannot handle that, doesn’t have the same motivations. Ren likes people, not knowledge. Gakushuu needs to use people.

That’s when he meets Nat, or Natsuhiko as he called him back then. He sees the opportunity, and takes it. The moment Ren sees this bullied, ugly little snotty kid being fawned over by Gakushuu, he wants to find out exactly what he is doing wrong. It may be manipulative and ‘evil’, as his ethics teacher adores to say, but it works. (Plus, Gakushuu gets a strange warm bubbling in his stomach whenever a jealous Ren steals him away for time alone together, away from Natsuhiko.)

Ren hears Gakushuu praising Nat’s intelligence, fawning over the test results, and instantly starts improving in their sessions. He listens intently, even when he’s bored stiff of the work. Gakushuu starts to notice him sneaking books home to read and study for their next sessions.

Finally, after only a few months, Gakushuu reveals to his father the foundations of his elite group. They call themselves the ‘Three Professors’ (a fact teenage Gakushuu would later vehemently deny), strutting around school at the top of their class, and suddenly being smart becomes a cool thing. Nat may not be the one the girls drool over, but Gakushuu and Ren make up for it in spades.

His father laughs.

Gakushuu shouldn’t have expected any more.

~ ~ ~

Gakushuu is twenty when he remembers something.

Koro-Sensei had brown eyes, so dark they were almost black.

He leans over the side of his bed and throws up, tentacles holding him.

~ ~ ~

Gakushuu is fifteen when he meets Irina Jelavich. He’s coming out of the classroom after one of his talks with the creature, his blazer slung over his arm, shirt rumpled. It’s hot in summer, very hot, especially in a building with no AC.

Her eyes widen as she takes him in, and for a second he mistakes her for one of the main campus teachers. Fear floods him at the thought of his father hearing about this, hearing that his son is taking lessons from the delinquent’s teacher.

“Don’t tell him.” Gakushuu blurts out. He flushes. It seems all negotiation skills fly out of the window when faced with his own imminent doom.

“What were you doing in there? Did the principal send you?” She scowls, arms folded over her… substantial chest. Ugh.

He swallows, pulling himself up straight to adjust his clothing. He’s sticky from the heat, uncomfortable. He can’t wait to go home and have a long, freezing shower. “No.” He settles on, concluding she must be the 3-E teacher. No way would a main campus one trek all the way up here.

She raises an eyebrow. He stays quiet. “Well, are you going to tell me what you were doing in there?”

Thankfully, that’s the moment the creature decides to step out into the corridor. “Irina! What’s going on?” Bright and bubbly as always. Gakushuu can feel that stretched smile behind him, even if he can’t see it.

“What’s he doing here?” She asks again, gesturing loosely at Gakushuu’s tense body. He needs a shower, something to relax and wash away the filth. Wait, he has to go all the way down the hill, too, with this sticky feeling clinging to him. Great.

“Oh, just checking up on us. The principal wouldn’t come all the way up here himself, you know.” The creature laughs, making Gakushuu flinch. He hates all of the talk of his father. When he’s up here, he’d rather forget the man exists at all.

“Hmph.” The woman narrows her eyes at Gakushuu for a moment or two longer, then sticks out perfectly manicured nails. “Irina Jelavic. Tell your dear papa I said hi, hm?”

“Of course.” Gakushuu slots his hand in hers, shaking firmly with the perfectly-trained polite smile smeared over his lips. He won’t, obviously. His father doesn’t know this woman outside of hiring her, he wouldn’t appreciate Gakushuu reminding him 3-E exists.

She sticks an equally fake smile on her red lips, subtly wiping her hand on her skirt (well, sweat isn’t pleasant, he supposes) and stepping aside. “Goodbye. Sensei, could we have a word?”

(Why didn’t she stop for a second and think?)

“I suppose?” The creature sounds confused, but Gakushuu doesn’t bother turning to watch them go back into the classroom. He marches out instead, suffocating in the heat, nursing his sore nails, praying the shower will soothe his protesting butt.

Sore nails from digging into the desk. Aching butt from sitting down for so long. Sticky and sweaty and ruffled from the heat.

Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the UK in 2019, a quarter of all suicides were by men.
> 
> In the USA in 2018, male suicide was almost 4x more often than female suicide.
> 
> In Australia over the past ten years, suicide death was three times higher in males than females.


	2. Anger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be updated every Sunday and Thursday!
> 
> Again, please make sure you have read the warnings in the first chapter, although this chapter doesn't contain all that much.
> 
> For all of my wonderful readers, I am very grateful to you! There's not much of an outlet for me in the wider world these days, and so being able to write gives me a bit of purpose to my life. You are the reason I can carry on!
> 
> Enjoy!  
> \- E.D.

Gakushuu is seventeen, sitting in his room. He’s had the Five Virtuosos over to study, getting ahead on schoolwork, catching some of them up on subjects they don’t understand. Akabane called, once or twice, declaring his usual ominous threats like ‘I’m coming over’ or ‘I’m going to say hi to your dad soon’. He’s been doing this every time the Five Virtuosos have been at Gakushuu’s for at least a month, and has never once shown up, so Gakushuu thought he didn’t have to worry.

He was wrong.

Two hours after his disaster group of friends leave, a rock smashes through Gakushuu’s window.

He wouldn’t say he screamed, exactly. More like… made a fearful noise of shock. But if he did scream, he would have been justified in doing so, because a fucking rock just flew through his window and landed smack-bang in the middle of his desk, sending pencils scattering to the floor.

“What the fuck?!” He yells, scrambling out of bed and immediately stepping on a shard of glass. He makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat, contained (he’s used to doing that) so that no one will worry about him too much.

“Gakushuu?!” His father calls from somewhere in the house (because of course the maniac is awake at this time), sounding oddly concerned, but Gakushuu does not have the strength or mental capacity to deal with that right now because there’s a shard of glass sticking out of his furiously bleeding foot and someone just threw a fucking rock through the window-

“Shit! Sorry!”

Of course. It’s Karma, because who else would be insane enough to throw a rock through Gakushuu’s window in the middle of the night with the principal in the house.

“I’m going to rip all of your teeth out, you-!” Gakushuu screams, clutching at his foot.

“Gakushuu!” His father rips the door open, eyes wide and scared (and isn’t that an expression normal Gakushuu would relish). His suit is disheveled from running down the long corridor, so their housekeeper will have to clean it all over again. Why is he thinking about the housekeeper? Oh, right, shock does that to people.

There’s shuffling from outside the window as his father takes in the room, the rock, the glass, and the smashed-in window. Then, because Karma has a wonderful habit of making everything ten times worse, Gakushuu realises that the other boy has decided to fix this by climbing in the window. You know. Like a burglar.

“I didn’t mean to do that, I thought it-” Red hair appears in the window, golden eyes peeking up. In less than a minute, Gakushuu’s father has dragged the other boy through the window and has him in a headlock, crushing his poor windpipe. 

“Father!” Gakushuu lunges forward, ignoring the stabbing pain in his foot, and yanks on his father’s arm. “It’s Karma!”

“Exactly, karma for trying to attack us!” The man growls, only tightening his hold. Gakushuu would weep with disappointment if his friend wasn’t currently being strangled. Oh, look, Karma’s face is almost as red as his hair.

“No! I mean it’s Akabane Karma! Stop, please!” Gakushuu hisses, wrenching Karma free finally as his father realises his mistake.

Karma heaves in air, curling in on himself to cough violently. Gakushuu hauls him up to stop the boy from falling on the glass, instead shoving him onto his bed, where he lets him catch his breath. His father sheepishly straightens up, pulling his suit together in some attempt to save his dignity. It’s long gone, but Gakushuu isn’t going to be the one to tell him that.

“Why did you throw a rock at my window?” He sighs, sitting down on the bed beside a dying Karma. He lifts his bare foot up, examining the wound. It’s not too deep. He should be able to get it out, clean the wound, and bandage it himself.

“It was-“ Karma dissolves into hacking coughs again, clutching at his throat. Gakushuu rolls his eyes. Whenever he’s choked, he never makes this much fuss about it. You can always trust Karma to be overdramatic.

“I shall… gather medical supplies.” His father nods firmly, swiftly striding out of the room. Fleeing from the chaos Karma usually brings with him, no doubt. Gakushuu kicks the door closed with his good foot the second the way is clear.

Eventually, Karma catches his breath, sitting up to massage his neck with a wince. “It was supposed to be romantic.”

“Throwing a rock through my window and stabbing my foot?”

“It wasn’t supposed to go through!” Karma cries, bottom lip jutting out. Aw. How childish. “I should have used a smaller rock, so you would hear it and find me waiting down there for you.”

Gakushuu can’t help the small smile threatening to take over his mouth. “Next time, a little warning would be nice. Then I can put on my suit of armour for when it inevitably goes wrong.”

“Next time, I’m giving you warning so that your dear old papa won’t try to snap my neck.” Karma grimaces, leaning over to catch a glimpse of his neck in the mirror. “Look! It’s going to bruise! He’s got a grip of iron, I swear.”

“You’ve handled worse, delinquent.”

“Rich twat.”

“Scum.”

“Money-grabbing whore.”

“Says you, plebeian prostitute.”

“You love it, though, don’t you?” Karma teases, a smirk stretched wide over his face as he leans into Gakushuu’s shoulder.

(“You love it, though, don’t you?”)

Oh. That little thump in his chest again, almost as though he’s alive.

“Don’t you?” Karma nudges him, grin slipping.

“Karma.” Gakushuu frowns, looking down to his lap and fiddling with his bedsheets. He can’t keep quiet any longer. This whole dance is driving him mad, and that’s saying something, considering he’s managed to grow up relatively sane under the care of a man like his father. “What are we doing?”

“What do you mean?” Karma pulls away, golden eyes flicking over him.

“I mean… What is this? When you say stuff like that, what do you expect me to do?” Gakushuu squeezes his eyes shut, blocking out all thought of those eyes boring into him. “You know I’m not good with stuff like this. I don’t understand what your game is here. When you say… When you say stuff like that… Do you mean it? At all?”

“Gakushuu…” 

A light hand touches his chin. He takes a shuddering breath, opening his eyes to come face to face with Karma, staring directly into those hypnotising eyes.

“I do.” Karma whispers. His eyes rove over Gakushuu, who remains speechless, clueless in what to do. Luckily, Karma has that covered for the both of them.

He brings their lips together in a soft kiss, gentle, so unlike their usual violent affection. Gakushuu remains stiff, heart racing like it’s trying to win something, even when Karma’s fingers brush over the skin of his cheek to soothe him.

It feels… nice. Strange, but nice.

So he lets go, lets himself slide into the ecstatic bubbling in his stomach, to get lost in the kiss-

Yellow.

He jolts away, heart thumping and not in the good way, mind racing.

Yellow.

Yellow.

Yellow.

Nails, pain, chalk-

Yellow.

“Gakushuu?”

Fuck, fuck-

“Gakushuu?!”

Yellow, everywhere, and he can’t get away because-

“Gakushuu, breathe with me, ok?”

Nails in wood. Nails on wood. Wood on wood. Skin on wood.

Yellow.

“Gakushuu. It’s ok. Gakushuu, breathe. In, remember? Then out. Gakushuu, just put your hand here-“

He shudders. Fire in his lungs, his head, his arms, his nails, his-

He can’t breathe. He has to breathe, now, or else he’ll die like Ikeda and he can’t do that-

“That’s right, on my chest. Feel that? That’s me breathing. There you are. Can you hear me?”

He nods. Something chuckles in his ear, familiar and mocking and kind all at once-

Yellow.

Yellow everywhere, he can feel it on his-

“In, two, three, four… That’s it. Now, out, two, three, four… You’re doing good, Gakushuu.”

Yellow, oh god, there’s so much. He can’t escape it.

But he can, can’t he?

He’s breathing.

“Another one. In… Out… Perfect, you’re amazing, keep going.”

The yellow is gold. It’s not yellow, it’s gold. Karma’s eyes. Safe, golden, Karma’s eyes.

“You’re getting it, well done. Just keep breathing with me.”

He nods shakily, focusing on the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide, flowing through his veins and arteries. Four beats. Simple maths. He can do maths. Best in the class, if he’s ignoring the outlier that is Karma.

Karma, who gives him a hesitant smile, a worried furrow between his eyebrows. “Are you back with me?”

Gakushuu swallows, quickly retracting his hand from Karma’s chest and sitting up straight. “I’m fine.” He misses the warmth, but there is danger in letting yourself be weak. It’s simply waving a big sign saying ‘come eat me’ at the predators.

“Do you want to tell me where you went, there?” Karma asks gently. Fuck, Gakushuu hates this voice. It’s the pity voice.

“No.” He snaps, because he isn’t going to encourage this- this- whatever this is. Cut it off, before they find the vulnerabilities and use it to tear you down.

Koro-Sensei would have told him to rethink that, and consider the fact that Karma has no motive to hurt him.

But Koro-Sensei is dead, so his opinion doesn’t matter anymore.

Still, it doesn’t stop the strange sinking in his chest when Karma draws back, his eyes skidding away, hurt. “Ok, if that’s what you want. Look, I’m sorry for- y’know, if you didn’t want it. I get it. I won’t do it again, I-“

“I think it’s best if you leave.” Gakushuu cuts him off sharply, shoving himself away from Karma to his feet. The shard of glass stings him as it pushes deeper into his skin. He doesn’t make a noise. “You can use the front door this time. Don’t break any more windows.”

Silence. Shuddering breaths fill the room, the only sign that Karma is still there with him. He can’t turn around, his back to Karma, arms folded over his chest. He feels foolish, standing in the middle of his bedroom in only his pajamas, tears stinging his eyes. An idiot, that’s what he is. A foolish, weak little idiot.

“Ok.” Karma whispers. Gakushuu hears him trudge miserably across the room, glass crunching under his feet. The door opens.

The door clicks shut.

Gakushuu doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. He doesn’t know why he saw all that yellow, felt his nails burning as though they were being pulled off. Most of all, he doesn’t know why he was so scared by it that he had to make Karma leave.

He thinks he might be going insane.

~ ~ ~

Gakushuu was twelve when he saw Nagisa Nagisa for the first time. He had gathered together Ren, Natsuhiko, and had started working on Tomoya Seo by that point. It isn’t easily wrangling a naturally cruel boy into an ordered and obedient group, but by July the next year he would have him under control. Teppei Araki would come soon after, swept in by pure chance when Gakushuu finally gained social media and happened to come across his account.

But that happened later. Gakushuu is twelve.

Nagisa is a boy-girl hybrid. Gakushuu, unfortunately, had been one of those caught up in gender stereotypes at that age, and no one truly did anything to change that. So when he sees this feminine masculine pretty boy wandering along the corridors, he can’t help but be curious.

Without Teppei, he cannot do enough online research on this strange being to understand him. Instead, he watches him. Sees him with his head down, long hair brushing his shoulders, a girlish hesitancy in his step. Watches him as he drops down the ranks, fails tests and cries in the bathrooms, laughs with pain in his eyes as the girls play with his hair.

That’s when Gakushuu starts tutoring other students. He wants this Nagisa in front of him. He wants to know what makes the boy tick, and why he plays into the feminine part of him yet seems to hate it at the same time. He doesn’t understand the hair, and that itches at him worse than any disease could. How can he manipulate and control if he cannot even understand what makes a failing student tick?

He hopes tutoring will bring Nagisa to him. He knows the other boy is being threatened with Class 3-E, and he doesn’t have much time left. Surely, the tempting offer of tuition from the school’s highest achiever is too good an offer for him to refuse. Surely, he cannot say no.

Yet…

Three months in, and Nagisa has not approached him. Plenty of others have, desperate for a chance to climb the ranks or save themselves. Some for the odd fantasy of stealing a date from him (those he turns down pretty rapidly). But no Nagisa, even as the boy slips and slips and slips.

He’s irritated, frustrated, confused. Does Nagisa just not care? Is Gakushuu too intimidating in all his glory and invincibility? Will he have to lower himself to speak to the boy in person, just to force him into a session?

In the fourth month, he decides he’s done waiting. He sends out Tomoya, almost tamed to perfection, to bully Nagisa into asking for help. Just little jabs, small things to make him question his worth, make him want to improve. Tomoya becomes better and better at subtly slipping in mentions of Gakushuu’s tutoring. He sees Nagisa’s head hanging lower, sees the girl-boy’s friends snidely blocking him out, and knows he’s close.

When Nagisa appears at the door to the classroom, he could scream with joy.

He doesn’t. Instead, he offers him a polite smile, shakes hands with him, asks him his name, asks him what he needs help on, and gets to work.

Nagisa is dull, at first. A weak little princess terrified of the slightest mistake, jumping if Gakushuu puts something down too hard, barely responding to anything outside of the session. It’s annoying to be bored this early into something Gakushuu has wanted for ages, so he presses. Pushes. Mentions his hair. Mentions how he almost mistook him for a girl.

Nagisa winces.

“What’s wrong?” He strikes, relishing in the look of panic as Nagisa realises he didn’t cover his actions well enough.

“N-nothing. I need a little help with the quadratic-”

“That’s not the problem, is it? It’s about your hair.”

Nagisa goes silent, staring down at his hands.

Gakushuu leans forward, resting his chin on his hands. He’s finally getting somewhere, slithering up and preparing to give his poisonous bite. “If you don’t like it, why not cut it all off?”

“I can’t.” Nagisa whispers, face a bright red.

“Why not?” Gakushuu frowns, skimming his eyes over Nagisa. He would know by now if it was a medical reason. Perhaps he’s trying to attract someone? No, he wouldn’t go through that just to have a partner. Nagisa doesn’t have the confidence or brains to do such a thing.

“Asano…” Nagisa’s voice drops low, serious, like he’s going to tell him a secret. “Asano… Frankly, it’s none of your business.”

Gakushuu freezes, staring at him. Nagisa’s eyes track up steadily, meeting his.

Oh shit.

He can feel something tingling on the back of his neck, something a little like fear. Cold hands creep into his lungs, crushing his heart, making it hard to breathe. He knows this feeling, is very familiar with it. He feels it every time he walks into the principal’s office, knows it like the back of his hand. The thing he doesn’t know or understand is why this feeling is coming from Nagisa Nagisa, of all people.

“If you wanted to talk to me, maybe you should have just walked up to me, instead of stalking me and getting your friends to bully me.” Nagisa continues, his teeth sinking deep into Gakushuu’s neck and holding him in a paralysing grip. “I’m not some freak in a circus. Just because I look a little like a girl doesn’t give you the right to act like this. If anything, I should be the one staring at you through the glass of your tiny trophy box.”

Gakushuu hisses, rising to his feet. “How da-”

“Sit down.”

He sits. He can’t help it. It’s programmed into every muscle of his body, something that screams obedience or death.

“I know what you are, and who you are, and I am not scared of you.” Nagisa, this unnatural devil, a snake in disguise, spits at him. “You are a damaged little boy, still tugging on your father’s trouser leg, and I’m not bowing to that. I see how you can’t even stand loud voices, or people touching you, or even the slightest hint of failure. I see it because you’re me, and I’m you, and we’re the same no matter how many marks separate us on a test. That’s all numbers on a page. This - This is the real world, so laugh at me all you want, poke and prod at me but know that you are no better than me. In fact, you’re worse, because you can’t even see it.”

Trembling, Gakushuu watches Nagisa stand, calmly putting his things away into his bag. He can’t breathe. All he knows is Nagisa’s deathlike grip around his throat, and the words ringing in his ears.

“Open your eyes, Asano.”

With that, Nagisa leaves, and Gakushuu slumps back in his chair like a puppet with his strings cut.

He never talks to Nagisa again (at least, he plans to). He sees him with Akabane, that delinquent boy, but he makes sure to look away just in case Nagisa’s eyes catch on his own. No more digging into him. He’ll leave this unnatural beast alone, and spit on the grave of his investigation for good measure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In 2012, a study found that over 40% of non-binary people had attempted suicide at some point, a third had experienced physical assault, and a sixth sexual assault based on their gender.
> 
> In another survey of 79 non-binary people, 100% reported feeling uncomfortable being non-binary in the UK, and 94% reported feeling unsafe.
> 
> As a non-binary person myself, I cannot be blind to the realities. If someone trusts you enough to come out to you, please react in the right way. Call them by their name. Do not misgender them. Do not ask if they're sure, because I'm sure they've asked themself the same question a million times. What gender someone else is is not your decision, so do the right thing, and accept them for who they are.
> 
> If you yourself are questioning, don't be afraid of trying stuff out. You don't have to stick a label to it either. You don't owe anyone an apology for who you are. Be strong.


	3. Bargaining

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This...
> 
> This is a bad chapter.
> 
> Be prepared.
> 
> Enjoy!  
> \- E.D.

Gakushuu was sixteen, and then he was fifteen, and then he was eighteen, and then he was five.

It doesn’t make sense to him. Time is supposed to be chronological, that’s what he’s always been taught, but this sinking between different realities makes him question that. He blinks and he’s ten. He lives a day of memories, feeling every step and word like they’re old friends, and suddenly drops back and he’s eighteen again, watching Karma launch at his father.

Yes, right. Gakushuu was eighteen, and he was regretting letting Karma tag along. Eighteen, not ten, even though he can still feel the baby fat weighing his tiny limbs down.

He’s eighteen - was eighteen - is this a memory? He was. It all feels so familiar. Why does he already know what’s going to happen?

~ ~ ~

He was eighteen when Karma attacked his father with a snarl. 

The dinner had been going relatively well until that point. None of them had been wolfing their food down to escape, and his father had even started down the path of praising Karma for his grades. It took time for his father to get over the whole ‘breaking into Gakushuu’s room with a rock’ incident, but he’s been trying. It’s part of his whole redemption arc, which Gakushuu personally doesn’t think is going too well, but maybe that’s because he already knows that he’s about to say-

“In fact, it’s rather remarkable that you have achieved these grades while slacking off with your friends.” The principal, his father, twirls spaghetti around his fork with a thoughtful look, forgetting himself and sinking back into old habits. “I wonder why my own son cannot achieve the same. Perhaps it bears some thought, Asano? Unless you’d like to end up as my corporate slave.”

Gakushuu flushes red, biting his tongue hard to stop himself responding. While he would love to snap back a sharp remark, rising to the challenge, he knows these tactics are to make Karma act out. If Gakushuu shows he’s upset, Karma will respond in the first way he knows; with his fists. So he bites his tongue and stares hard at the plate of food in front of him, his stomach rolling uncomfortably.

Karma tenses, his fork going still. “I work hard, actually, and I’m only ever level with Gakushuu when I work just as hard as him. It’s nothing to do with whatever you’re implying, sir.”

“Of course, of course.” His father glances up with a pleasant smile. “I had only noticed that Asano - apologies, Gakushuu - drops remarkably when slacking, while you only dip in your grades. Less doodles of smiley faces and octopuses, yes, Gakushuu? I may not be your principal, but the teachers do tell me when something is not going to plan. Your future is-”

“Stop it.” Karma pushes himself to his feet, his chair clattering back behind him. “Stop talking to him like that. You know - you know why he does that! You can’t-”

Gakushuu stares at the yellow strands of pasta in front of him, the noise around blurring to nothing. No, not nothing, not entirely. There’s something scraping on wood. Skin on wood. Nails on wood.

(Why does it all feel so familiar?)

His chest is tight, trapped between wood and-

(No-)

His chest is tight, running out of air. But, wait, he knows this. He just has to breathe. In, out, hand on Karma’s chest (except that was a year ago, wasn’t it?) with his mouth open and breathing in cold air.

What was it? He tries so hard to remember. His father was talking about smiley faces and octopuses. Karma was talking about why.

Why.

Why?

Smiley faces and octopuses. One smiley face on one octopus. The teacher, Koro-Sensei, who taught him after school in the hot sticky 3E classroom on top of the hill, because Gakushuu was too stupid and he didn’t understand why his father kept him away from that place. White drawings on the chalkboard when Koro-Sensei was happy. Yellow tentacles. Weird slimy hugs. Gakushuu hated that place - but he liked it in the end, didn’t he? He missed that creature when it died.

Right?

~ ~ ~

Gakushuu was sixteen when the creature on top of the hill was killed.

Knife to the heart, he heard on the news. He was in the house when he saw it, Ren’s mum unusually serious as she read out the report. Flashing lights. Blurred out pictures of the suspects being brought to the station. And a picture of Koro-Sensei, smiling, brought up onto the screen with his teacher’s robe and huge smile.

His chest hurts as he stares at it. The more he looks, the blurrier it gets, just a vague blob as his tears take over his vision. He tries breathing, but the breath catches in his throat with fear and relief-

(Relief? No, that can’t be right-)

He tries breathing, but the breath catches in his throat with grief. He knew it was coming. Why does he feel so shocked? The government was out to kill him, the kids were planning their methods, and the creature acknowledged it all with a laugh. He knew that Koro-Sensei had to die. It was him or everyone. But… he couldn’t help thinking of Koro-Sensei as invincible, this powerful destructive creature with impossible speeds. How could anyone have killed him?

With a knife in the back, apparently.

No, look, it was the front, see? Ren’s mum brings up the new report, talking with the head of the investigation. A knife in the front, driven right into his heart, right over the half-moon tie he always wore. The autopsy on his body is-

Koro-Sensei dissolved into light when he died. He didn’t have a body to do an autopsy on.

The students they interviewed told the police what had happened. Knife to the heart, each one holding down a limb.

But, no. The interviews came days later, when they found who it was who had killed him.

No. No, this doesn’t make sense. No, the government knew it was the 3E kids, because they were the ones who’d given them the weapons and the teachers and the funding. Why would they have had to find them? Why would they have needed to?

He doesn’t understand. How old is he? He was sixteen, but now he’s not so sure. All he knows is that his chest is tight and his vision is going white and there’s burning tears in his eyes, his eyes that he wants to claw out. He wants to claw them out. He wants them gone. He wants to stop feeling, stop seeing him every time he closes his eyes, wants to stop remembering. Fuck, why did he have to see that? Why wasn’t anyone protecting him from that? Did they not notice, every single night? He was only a child. He was only a fucking child.

Gakushuu was-

~ ~ ~

Gakushuu was seventeen, sitting beside Ren, designing plans for the school building. He’s still Student Council President, with that bright red armband, the true prince of the school. Ren is still his right-hand man. Ren handles what he cannot, and then he deals with the rest of it. Together, they are invincible. He’s never going to tell the rest of the Five Virtuosos that, but it’s the truth.

Anyway, they’re working together, and then he stops his finger on the path up to the hill. They’ve been planning out which areas of fencing need to be redone, and technically they should close over the path. The old class of 3E have bought the building and the hill, so it’s no longer school property, and it won’t take much to create a new path for the owners. He really should close it over. No one should be going up that hill.

No one except him, of course.

“What do you think?” Ren chews the end of his pencil nonchalantly (a bad habit picked up from Tomoya), bored to death with this. He was lured in by the promise of a redesigned drama department, and is clearly regretting his decision. “I say cut it off. Too much scandal up there, loads of students will be wanting to see where… you know. Plus, the forest is dangerous. Agreed?”

“No.”

Ren’s mouth goes still around the pencil. He stares at Gakushuu, uncomprehending, as though he’d expected Gakushuu to agree completely. Well, yes, that was a fair assumption. Gakushuu should agree. 

But he can’t let go. Not just yet.

“We’ll keep it open, just put a gate in.” He picks up a pencil, marks that down on the map. “Who knows what 3E will do when they’re bored of that place? Besides, it could be an activity ground for outdoor study of biology. Keep the keys to ourselves and the staff, and let it remain open as an option. I’m sure our new principal will agree.”

“Are you sure?” Ren sets the pencil down (ew, now there’s spit on the table) and tilts his head, his worried doe eyes making Gakushuu shift uncomfortably. “After everything that happened there?”

“Of course. It had nothing to do with me.” Gakushuu scoffs. He has a horrible feeling that Karma told Ren about the extra lessons he had with the creature, but as long as he pretends that nothing ever happened, Ren should follow his lead. It worked when his father slapped him across the room. A few worried looks, and soon everything should go back to how it was before.

“Gakushuu…” Ren sighs, reaching forward. He takes Gakushuu’s hands in his own. Oh. Well, evidently that tactic isn’t going to work anymore, he needs to find a new one before Ren gets too emotional on him.

“Karma told you, did he?” Gakushuu hisses, studiously glaring a hole into the desk, avoiding Ren’s face that makes his throat want to close up. “Asshole. I knew I should never have let him make friends with you.”

He’s going to kill that idiot when this is over. Preferably with a pencil in the eye.

(He doesn’t. He knows he won’t, but he thinks it anyway, because that is what he is supposed to do. He’s already thought it, when he said those words to Ren the first time, the second time, the third time. It all feels so familiar-)

“Gakushuu, I’m so sorry.” Ren’s voice goes wobbly in that way Gakushuu hates. It makes him want to reverse whatever he’s done to make Ren do that, even when he’s done nothing wrong at all. “I- I had no idea. It was horrible, what he- I hate him so much for it! And I wish I could go back and stop it!”

This- What? This, this is not what Gakushuu was expecting, not at all. What on earth is Ren talking about?

(Except he knows, deep down. He pushes it away.)

“It- It wasn’t his fault he was murdered, Ren.” Gakushuu frowns, completely bewildered.

“I-” Ren’s mouth snaps shut, his outburst cut off in his own confusion. Oh, great, now neither of them know what’s going on. “What? I meant- Why would I blame him for his death? I wasn’t talking about that-”

“What were you talking about, then?” Gakushuu sighs in exasperation, pinching the bridge of his nose. He can feel a headache coming on. “Go on, spit it out. I’d rather move past this and carry on with the plans.”

Ren’s mouth wobbles as he struggles to find words, imploring eyes dancing between Gakushuu’s violet ones. “I was talking about…” He trails off, tongue stopping just short of forming the words, uncertainty in every twitch of his body. “The hill. In… in the classroom…”

“...Yes?” Gakushuu raises an eyebrow, checking the clock. Did Karma spill some bullshit lie to prank Ren? No, that doesn’t make sense, why would he say something horrible about Koro-Sensei for a joke? It’s Koro-Sensei, they all loved him-

(When Gakushuu said: “His death wasn’t your fault.”)

(But Karma said: “I wish it was. After everything he did.”)

(It doesn’t fit, but it all happened. It was all real. Wasn’t it? No one seems to know. He remembers Koro-Sensei so clearly, but everyone else acts like he was a completely different person to what Gakushuu knows. They act like he’s done something, like Koro-Sensei was bad, but they all know the truth, or at least, they should. They act like the creature was a monster in his heart, and not just on the outside. Gakushuu doesn’t understand.)

(It’s all so familiar.)

(It’s wrong. It’s right. He’s right, isn’t he? A supercreature on the hill, a class of kids sent to kill him. It sounds so ridiculous, but it’s better than the-)

(It sounds so ridiculous, but it is the truth. Right?)

“When he… Fuck, Gakushuu, you know what I’m talking about.” Ren swallows, dropping his head into his hands and taking a huge gulp of air. “Please, don’t make me say it. I can’t- Shit-”

“What is it?” Gakushuu scowls, confused beyond belief. But Ren only shakes his head, pressing his hand to his mouth, and rushes from the room. 

Is he ill? Gakushuu remembers him being sick, but that was years ago, and illness can’t last years. Was it something he said? He remembers Ren walking into that room of bodies last year, the bodies of the exchange students, and seeing all the blood. He remembers Ren going pale, rushing out like he’s just done, and not quite getting to the bathroom in time. He remembers cleaning the blood from his skin, then cleaning the mess from Ren’s mouth, and then cleaning the… everything… from the floor of his father’s study, grim scrubbing that rubbed his hands raw and bruised his knees.

But that isn’t now. Now Ren ran out. Ren ran out back then, too. Where is he? Is he seventeen, or fifteen? Was it words or actions that made Ren run? Make a decision. Stop floating in this haze, stop-

Gakushuu was se-

Gakushuu was-

~ ~ ~

Gakushuu was over the desk.

(No-)

Gakushuu’s nails dig themselves in.

(No, no-)

Nails on wood. Skin on wood.

(Please, no-)

He feels hot. It’s hot in the classroom. Hot skin on the desk, shirt rumpled up to his chest, and

(Stop.)

he can’t quite breathe, trapped between

(Stop it.)

the desk and a

(Stop it. Stop it now.)

body. 

(I said stop it.)

The door is closed. The blinds are shut.

(I said to stop it now!)

A low chuckle in his ear. He shivers.

(Stopitstopitstopitstopitstop-)

But that’s not the only sound is it? Nails on wood. Wood on wood. Skin on wood. 

Skin

(STOPITSTOPITSTOPITSTOP-)

on

(STOPITPLEASESTOPI’MBEGGINGYOU-)

skin.

(No…)

Does he know now? Does he understand?

He doesn’t want to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In 2019, the CSEW estimated that one in five adults had experienced abuse before the age of 16.
> 
> Nearly 700,000 children are abused in the US each year.
> 
> About 2.5 million Australian adults experienced physical and/or sexual abuse during childhood.


	4. Depression

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahaha I really thought I was gonna stick to an updating schedule, huh?
> 
> This chapter probably has every single trigger included in this fic. So, be warned.
> 
> It's the highlight of my day when I see a comment pop up in my inbox. So even if I don't respond directly to it in a few days, maybe even a few weeks, I have definitely seen it and appreciated it :)
> 
> Enjoy!  
> \- E.D.

Gakushuu was…

Does it even matter?

Listen, does it even matter? It’s not permanent. He could open his eyes and find that he’s six feet deep. Or he could be barely out of the cradle, clinging to his father, clinging to Ikeda. Does it even matter if he doesn’t know how old he is anymore? It’s fine if he drifts. He doesn’t care. He only knows that he never wants to see the colour yellow again.

He’s so far gone from all of this, and he knows he’ll never fully find his way back. He can feel someone near him, all of the time, but he just can’t reach out and take their hand. Every time he tries, some scared part of him shoves the dread to the forefront, knowing that even if this is bad, it could get worse. There’s a wall just between them, separating them, and he has to stay on this side all by himself. If he dares to break that wall-

He knows he’ll break himself along with it.

Then he was-

~ ~ ~

Gakushuu was twenty.

When…

University. That’s right. All the way out in America. So far from home, from all the reminders back there. So far from Karma, too, but they call every two days so he can manage. If anyone could deal with a long-distance relationship, it’s them.

University. Right. When… What? Something had to have happened, or else he has no story to live through. What happens at university? Parties, right? Let’s go with a party.

Gakushuu was twenty, in university, at a party. He doesn’t go to these very often, with all the work he has to do-

MIT, yes?

-but he goes to this one because he’s stressed and he’s trying to live a little, do some stupid shit that Karma would do. He wants to make an effort for his boyfriend. That includes trying to see things from his point of view. So he goes to this party in someone’s flat, drinks a couple of shitty beers, finishes that off with a glass of water to wash out the taste, and winds up neck-deep in a political discussion.

Don’t ask how. He’s competitive, give him slack. Too many discussions about politics over the table with his father has made him into this, so here he is, having it out with some redneck about feminism. It’s all been going good so far. He’s given the poor boy a thorough thrashing, so much so that a few people have gathered into a small crowd around them, jeering at opinions they don’t like, adding in their worthless input.

“No! No!” The hammered redneck sloshes his drink as he tries to shut the crowd up. “But these women- they’re all so- so, you know! They’re all like: ‘guys are assholes’ and ‘I’m too scared to go out for a drink’ as though every guy there is gonna fucking rape them! Which is- It’s bullshit!”

Gakushuu… feels something. Well, he feels a lot of things, but he knows this something is important because the dread comes shooting up when he feels this something curl in his gut. Despite the warning his body gives him, he launches into his argument with enthusiasm. “That’s because one in five women have been raped in the US at one point in their lives! One in five! So of course they’re gonna be fucking terrified to put themselves in a vulnerable situation when the liklihood of some asshole taking advantage of them is one in five!”

“Well why do they wear such- such slutty stuff, right?” The guy carries on, gesturing vaguely to a girl in the corner, who wears shorts and a crop top. “What’s the point of wearing that stuff? It’s for the guys to look at them, and then they get all defensive and annoying when the guys actually want to fuck them. Like, they should feel lucky that a guy wants to fuck them!”

“I didn’t.”

He…

He doesn’t know why he said that.

“What?” The guy scrunches his nose up, leaning forward. He didn’t hear.

Gakushuu shoves the memory from his mind, erases it even though his therapist has been telling him not to, and leans forward again. “I said, they don’t! Clothes aren’t an invitation for someone to attack them! They wear what they want to wear, and it isn’t up to you to decide why they wore that. You decide what they want based on what they tell you they want!”

“Yeah, yeah, as though you know anything about that.” The guy rolls his eyes condescendingly, making Gakushuu’s anger flare up. He hates when people act like he’s less than them. All he can hear is that dead tone in his father’s voice when he puts him down over and over and over again. “I bet you don’t even have a girlfriend. I’m right, aren’t I? You have no idea what girls want.”

“I have a boyfriend, actually, and- This has nothing to do with the debate!” Gakushuu grits his teeth, breathing harsh through his nose. He knows he’s getting worked up, and he doesn’t like it. It was a bad idea to come here. It was an even worse idea to drink so much of that stupid disgusting beer. “It isn’t all girls, either. You’re talking as though it’s only girls who get raped. That’s so-”

“Never said that!” The asshole launches forwards, his hot breath clogging up Gakushuu’s nose as he gets up right in his face. They weren’t sitting that far apart, but even so, this is a little excessive. Gakushuu doesn’t understand why this is the appropriate reaction when men argue. “Boys aren’t so uptight about it, though. They don’t get all huffy and shit, or paranoid.”

Gakushuu scowls, refusing to back away. This guy’s breath stinks. He coughs a little as he opens his mouth to retort, but before he can get a word out, he’s interrupted.

“Actually, I change my mind. It’s only sissies like you who get like girls do! Bet you would whine like a bitch if someone put you over the desk and-”

Breathe.

In.

Out.

Fuck, this was such a bad idea.

“Hey!”

Steady breaths. Ignore the noise and chatter around him, just focus on his breathing and the darkness behind his eyelids.

In and out.

He’s fine. He’s safe.

“Hey, asshole, you even listening?”

Shit- skin-

He pushes out blindly, breath hitching in his throat, yellow flashing behind his eyelids-

It’s gone. He can breath. No skin, just stale air stagnant around him and the stench of beer and vomit.

“The fuck was that? Oh, you’re so gonna-”

Skin-

Wood on his back-

A table? A table. A table on his back, skin on his chest, a fist curled around his shirt.

He takes a short gasping breath, and opens his eyes.

The guy stands over him, glaring down, his fists balled up in Gakushuu’s shirt. A red mark streaks across his face. Oh, shit, Gakushuu pushed out didn’t he? He panicked, and now he’s going to pay.

He can’t-

“Hey! Let him go, can’t you see he’s-?”

“Fuck off, Amy! This dickhead just fuckin’ punched me!”

The guy pulls him up, slams him down, his snarling in a way that shows off his teeth-

White teeth, stretched out into that permanent grin-

Gakushuu, he-

He can’t fucking breathe-

Akabane! Karma! Karma can help him, where is he? He needs Karma. A low whine escapes his lips, pleading, needing Karma to look at him with his safe warm caring eyes and tell him he’s ok, tell him how to breathe again.

“Gakush- Shit! Brandon, get the fuck off!”

The hands leave him, but he can’t move, so it’s not like it matters. There are people talking around him. Wood digs into his back - it’s just a table, he’s fine - and suddenly a face swims in front of him, wide-eyed and familiar.

“Gakushuu? Gakushuu, you ok, bud? Talk to me.” The familiar face, voice, says. Is it- That has to be… Killian. His roommate, the one who invited him here. Gakushuu hopes it’s a good sign that he can recognise him.

But then-

Killian, he-

His hands are on Gakushuu’s face-

His skin is so hot, and Gakushuu-

Skin on-

Skin on skin-

And Gakushuu-

Gakushuu was-

~ ~ ~

Gakushuu was seventeen, sitting on the rooftop with Karma.

The school rooftop, not his rooftop. After the smashed-window-debacle, Karma has tactically made the decision to avoid Gakushuu’s house altogether, and so the school rooftop is now the place they sit when they want to meet privately. After school, when everyone has gone home, including the teachers. Gakushuu has the keys to the building, left over from his days as ultimate prince of the school, and Karma…

Well, what Gakushuu doesn’t know, he doesn’t have to report. Besides, it’s not his fault the school hasn’t fixed the fence boundary since his father was principal.

The sky tonight is clear. Stars, moon, yada yada. He can see the dark shape of the hill behind them, the lights of the city in front, and if he actually cared about any of it he might say it’s pretty. However, he doesn’t. He waits in impatient silence as Karma works up the courage to actually address him.

It’s been a long time coming, this conversation. It started up on the hill when they were sixteen, when Gakushuu sat in the classroom and Karma drew a frowning face on the chalkboard, and it’s been continuing in awkward dribs and drabs ever since. 

A mention of how Koro-Sensei was good at drawing from him, an odd frown and shrug from Karma. A comment on Koro-Sensei’s obsession with magazines from Karma, a snort from Gakushuu. Yeah, he remembers those ‘innocent’ magazines. He’d taken a peek once when Koro-Sensei had his back turned, and had instantly gone bright red and proceeded to never mention it. As a sixteen-year-old, he thought it was a little funny.

(He knows better now. Whenever now is.)

Anyway, this conversation has been coming for a long time now.

(When is now? How long is a long time? Years seem to skip by in barely a second.)

“Gakushuu…”

Here we go.

“Yes?” He glances to Karma, sitting beside him, his head down and teeth digging into his lip. Oh. Karma’s nervous. He’s glad, in a way, that he’s not alone in that.

“Can you… tell me about him? I don’t know how much you… know… It’s been a long time, so I just want to make sure we’re on the same page on a few things.” Karma mutters, hesitant and jarring in the speed with which he speaks. Gakushuu thinks… He thinks there’s something off in that, isn’t quite sure why Karma sounds so nervous, but trusts him enough not to overthink it.

Isn’t that a novelty? Asano Gakushuu trusts Akabane Karma.

(Does he? He thought he only started to trust him when Karma agreed to hold off on sex until he felt right. Or was it when Karma sang him to sleep the first time? He doesn’t know.)

“Ok.” He agrees steadily. He takes a breath, in and out, then intertwines his fingers to steady himself when he starts to speak. “It was our last year of junior high. I was in class 3A, you were in the End Class, 3E. I’d been suspicious for a while, because your class had suddenly started doing so well, and… uhm…”

He flushes then, trailing to a stop. Admitting he’d been secretly seeing Koro-Sensei was bad enough, but purposefully sneaking up the hill to spy on them for getting good grades? It kinda makes him seem like even more of an asshole than he was.

“Go on.” Karma slowly reaches out, curls his fingers around Gakushuu’s hand without looking. “I won’t judge you. It stays between the two of us.”

“Uh…” Gakushuu nods, despite the fact that Karma can’t see it, and keeps speaking. “I… went up the hill after school to see what had changed. I thought I’d find some cheat sheets or something, maybe a special teaching tool that was being tested on you by my father, but… instead I found your teacher. Koro-Sensei. He didn’t have his disguise on, so it wasn’t like he could pretend he was just a normal teacher-”

“His disguise?”

“Yeah, changing his skin colour to normal and putting on that fake nose.” Gakushuu rolls his eyes as he remembers seeing it for the first time, remembers how hard he had laughed at the creature. “It was such a stupid disguise. I can’t believe it actually worked.”

“So… What was his normal skin colour then?” Karma asks.

Gakushuu frowns, looks at Karma's confused face. Shouldn’t he know that? He’d seen him every day for a year. “Yellow, idiot. How do you not remember that?” 

He feels his stomach clench as he says it. Yellow.

Yellow.

“Right, of course.” Karma hurriedly laughs, strained. Oh. Was Gakushuu being insensitive again? Karma’s suffering through grief, of course he might forget one or two details. “So, uh, after you found him?”

“He invited me in to talk.” Gakushuu carries on, awkward. Karma clearly isn’t comfortable talking about this yet. He’s squirming where he sits, almost breaks a nail when Gakushuu says that, and refuses to look Gakushuu in the face. They should really stop, do this when Karma’s feeling up to it, but Gakushuu has always been selfish. He doesn’t want to try this again. “I agreed to sign the contract, as long as he told me the secrets your class was hiding.”

“The contract?”

Ok, maybe he’s forgotten more than one or two details. Gakushuu can be patient.

“The NDA, Non-Disclosure Agreement. Yours stated that you could kill him to get one billion yen, but you couldn’t talk about his existence. Mine was just the part about not talking about him. He didn’t tell the government, so this was less of a legal binding and more of something to show mutual respect. It’s not like I could actually kill him, so there was no point in getting the official one.”

“Wait.” Karma runs his free hand through his hair, tugging. “The government? I- I’m sorry, I don’t… I don’t remember any of this.”

He knew something was off.

(Something is off because Akabane is a fucking liar-)

Why doesn’t Karma remember anything? Is this even Karma? But he’s acting like Karma, and he looks like Karma, and the government scientists aren’t great at inventing safe technologies like cloning or something. 

That must mean…

PTSD and grief can cause memory loss. Depression can cause memory loss. A lot of things can cause memory loss, and Gakushuu can afford to give Karma some slack. He’s been through a lot. It must be that Karma’s forgotten it all, is embarrassed by that, and wants Gakushuu to go over everything so he doesn’t feel so lost.

(He knows that feeling well. He’s so lost, can’t remember what he last did or where he is. It all feels so familiar, though-)

Gakushuu nods, squeezes Karma’s hand to show he understands. “It’s ok. I’ll go through it.”

Where to start?

(When did it start? When did he make this dream a reality inside his mind?)

“Before the year began, the government did experiments with black matter. They caught an assassin, The Reaper, and injected him with the serum they’d been working on. It made him grow tentacles.”

He can feel those tentacles. They were always sticky and slimy, as you might expect, but Gakushuu grew used to them eventually.

(Did he? He still felt disgusting everytime.)

“There was a lab accident, and he escaped. Actually… it was the lab your previous teacher had been working in.”

“Miss Yukimura?”

“Exactly.” Gakushuu glances to Karma, sees the pale-faced pity-

(No. That doesn’t fit.)

Gakushuu glances to Karma, sees the pale-faced shock written all over him, and turns away again to carry on. “They’d also been experimenting with a mouse on the moon. It blew up, and took half the moon with it. Koro-Sensei realised he didn’t have long left, but knew he couldn’t act normal in the world with how he then looked. He-”

“How did he look?” Karma’s voice almost cracks on the question.

“Like an octopus, basically, except the size of a human.” Gakushuu can’t imagine how horrible it must be to not remember how he even looked. If Ren died, and Gakushuu forgot what he looked like, he’d break down. “He had a large, round head, always wore his teacher’s robe and a tie with a half-moon on it, and he always had this massive white grin on his face. His tentacles came out of the armholes and below the robe, but they were constantly swaying about, especially when he got excited. I don’t know how the robe stayed on him, to be honest.”

(But it didn’t, did it? He needs to open his eyes.)

Karma makes a choked noise, turning his head away and pressing a shaking hand to his mouth. He almost looks like Ren, that time that they were making plans for the fence and-

(But that was after this, wasn’t it?)

He almost looks like Ren, that time he walked into his father’s office to see-

(Wasn’t he trying to avoid these memories? Why can’t he stop bringing them up?)

He almost looks like he’s going to be sick.

“Are you ok?” Gakushuu asks awkwardly, not familiar with comforting people. “We can talk about this another time, if you want.”

“No.” Karma is quick to cut in, taking a deep breath and facing Gakushuu again. “It’s now or never. Tell me about the hill.”

Gakushuu scans his face, taking in his pale skin and watery eyes, the clenched jaw and twitching lip. He’s trying to be brave. Gakushuu doesn’t know how to make him feel better about this, so he just carries on talking. “With the contract in place, I visited the hill every day after my activities, when your class was gone. He told me about your class. At first, it was just so I knew how to win, but then it turned into general chatter. I was losing no matter how much he told me, so it didn’t make much of a difference.”

“Why did you keep going?” Karma’s eyes flick over his, a hint of despair in his gaze. He looks so sad. It’s like he doesn’t even want Gakushuu to answer.

(But why? It’s not like the answer will make a difference to him.)

“I suppose I started to… want to hear about your class.” He admits quietly, nails digging into the palm of his free hand. “You all sounded so carefree. Nothing like the main campus. I guess I envied it, a little.”

(Lies.)

“Lies.”

Gakushuu’s head shoots up, eyes latching onto Karma. Except, those aren’t Karma’s eyes, are they? Karma’s eyes are golden. These are brown.

And he-

He’s got brown eyes, doesn’t he?

“Shuu, why would you tell your friend such a blatant lie?”

This didn’t happen (it doesn’t feel familiar) because in real life, Karma just hugged him and they fell asleep on the rooftop, under the stars. This isn’t real.

(But what is real, really?)

“You didn’t go there out of compassion.” He spits, teeth bared in a grin. “You went to him because you were a little coward.”

“No.” Gakushuu gasps out, frozen to the spot. His hand is still trapped between Karma’s (not Karma) and he couldn’t pull it away, even if he wanted to. “No, no, I did. I remember it. I remember it.”

(It felt so familiar-)

“Lies.”

(Didn’t it?)

“You came to me because you wanted good grades.”

“No-”

“Yes.”

No, he wanted to hear about 3E. Koro-Sensei told him about 3E, about how good and smart they were, about-

“-how pretty that Nagisa was with his hair down, and how Kayano always wore little short skirts, and-”

-how Karma always used to cause trouble, and then-

“-I’d teach him a lesson, that little brat, because he was just asking for it, and-”

-how he once replanted all of the flowers he’d picked, because he’d-

“-ruined their poor lives, but those flowers were begging to be picked, and-”

(Stop.)

-and-

(This is enough.)

-and-

(He understands now.)

-and Gakushuu was-

~ ~ ~

Gakushuu was sixteen, he thinks, with a therapist in front of him.

“I’m just grieving.” He says, and that’s part of the truth, but he doesn’t understand exactly what he’s grieving for yet.

“Take your time.” They say, and he wants to, he does, but time isn’t his anymore and he’s not sure when he’ll get it back.

“My dad hit me.” He says, and his cheek stings.

“Tell me about that.” They say, and he wishes they don’t, because then Gakushuu was-

~ ~ ~

Gakushuu was fifteen, and he glanced up.

Just in time for the hand to connect with his face. He’s weightless, for a second, until his hip slams into the corner of a desk and his shoulder hits the wall on the opposite side of the classroom. He thinks there might have been a crunch, something breaking, but he can’t be sure because his ears are ringing.

He’s not surprised. Well, he is, just a little, because the principal places so much emphasis on appearances that he would never hit his son in front of a roomful of students. But he’s not that surprised. This isn’t the first time a nasty snap has echoed from his bones, or the drip drip dripping of blood has filled the silence of his mind.

It’s always a mistake, though. Always a ‘make sure this never happens again’ or a ‘if you’d just listened’ or a ‘you made me’, and Gakushuu ate that all up like the dog food on the floor because facing the alternative is so much worse. His father loves him, and these are simple mistakes.

(Maybe that’s why he found it so easy to believe “you wanted this” because an adult is never wrong-)

Is this a mistake? He doesn’t know. The lines are blurred. His father stands there, staring at his hand like it’s betrayed him, while Ren and some others rush over to Gakushuu. He waves them off, though, still staring at his father’s face. This looks more like a mistake than any of his other ‘mistakes’.

(“You’re a mistake” and Gakushuu nods frantically, crying out-)

“Your face looks like it’s glitching out.” No reaction. Gakushuu hates it. He hates it so much. Even now, even when the principal has thrown him across the classroom in a burst of anger, he doesn’t get any reaction from him. He wishes his father would just scream and yell at him, do anything but stand there like a broken machine. “Uh oh, don’t tell me I’m finally seeing your fatherly side.”

Nothing. His heart caves in on itself, a little. He knew standing up to his father in such a dramatic way would get punishment, but now the principal won’t even look at him. Is he really that broken? Is he really that disgusting?

His cheek stings, his ribs burn, and his shoulder feels like lava has been poured over it. Ren lifts him up slowly, helping him to his feet. They trudge past the principal. Gakushuu turns his head slightly, trying to look at him, trying to get his own father to acknowledge him, but the man just stares at his hand blankly.

Ren pulls him on.

The four of them gather around him while the nurse fusses over him. Bandage for his cheek, a quick examination of his shoulder, cream for his hip.

“Goodness me, how did this happen?”

They all look at Gakushuu. Gakushuu, who plasters on a strained smile and shrugs with his good shoulder. “You don’t want to know.”

She leaves it at that.

He’s allowed off for the rest of the day, even as the other four are forced into lessons. He doesn’t know what to do. There’s an empty hole inside him, and he tries screaming out into the void, but there’s no one there to hear. 

(“You’re a coward.” He breathes into his ear, and Gakushuu knows it.)

He needs to let loose. Needs to scream his voice raw, to sob until the tears dry up. His father does not see him, his friends do not hear him, and even he himself doesn’t recognise the boy that looks back in the mirror every night.

(“Such a pretty face. Perfectly beautiful.” He trails a finger down his cheek, and Gakushuu wishes he could tear his skin off.)

He goes home. He would go for a walk in an isolated place, to yell his heart empty, but he doesn’t want anyone else to see him so lost and alone. Instead, he gets inside his blank house that has never really been home, walks up the stairs to his room, and takes out his sleeping pills.

Zopiclone. One, two, just to make sure he is knocked out completely. Little yellow pills, down his throat-

Yellow.

Yellow, and he falls into a haze of half-awake nightmares, where the yellow creature smiles and smiles with waving tentacles, and Akabane jumps around with guns blazing and knives between his teeth, and his father signs a government contract to kill off his only son, and everything is so much worse but just a little more bearable, and-

Yellow.

Yellow.

Because that’s all it was. That’s all it took. One small escape from one bad day, and he slips into the yellow yellow yellow fog until all that he has left is-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember, the symptoms that Gakushuu is experiencing here are completely made up. Fiction, not fact.
> 
> If you would like to know about psychosis, I'll give you a run-down here:
> 
> Psychosis is where a person's view of reality is altered. This means they experience either/both delusions (believing something that isn't real) or hallucinations (hearing, seeing, smelling, etc things that don't exist). 
> 
> Psychosis can be a symptom of a mental health condition such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, but it could also be the result of stress or a traumatic experience. There are many treatments available for those who suffer from psychotic episodes, like medication or therapy.
> 
> Psycopathy and psychosis are in no way similar, although they have similar-sounding names. A psychopath is someone with antisocial personality disorder. It's important not to get confused, as while psychopaths may sometimes pose a threat to those around them, people with psychosis are more likely to harm themselves than others.
> 
> While tv shows/films love to show a complete breakdown in someone suffering psychosis, it's not always like that. The amount of stigma around mental health is appaling. Psychosis may change how you act, but it doesn't fully change your personality. For some people it ends, for others it's consistent.
> 
> As with my notes last chapter, it's important to be kind and keep an open mind if someone you know experiences psychosis. Make sure to do your research, if you can (on reliable websites) and just be there to support them. I'm not an expert on this, but for me it has always become far easier with a friend nearby who understands and talks me through it.
> 
> Good luck to all those out there who do know what it's like.
> 
> You're not alone. In fact, 3% experience it at some point. Take care of yourself.


	5. Acceptance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the chapter where I'd realised I'd rarely actually put milestones in this, so prepare for lots of tying things up. I tried to make the ending nice and wholesome, but there is a significant amount of angst. I cannot resist.
> 
> Warnings same as ever.
> 
> I see a lot of people down in the comments are filled with a sense of horror at this... I'm glad :)
> 
> Enjoy!  
> \- E.D.

“-one more try?” Karma kneels down before him, a stupid haribo ring in his hands, with the entire school looking on in both shock and fear. Because of course Karma has to be this dramatic.

“Alright, yes, fine, you idiot.” Gakushuu snatches the ring from him, popping it straight into his mouth. He actually hates sweets, much prefers chocolate, but Karma knows that. It’s just to annoy him. “But only on the condition that the second the ex-principal walks by us together, you start declaring your everlasting love for me. And take a picture of his face.”

“Anything for you, second-place.” Karma jumps to his feet, beaming. There are a few whoops from the crowd, quickly erupting into confused cheering as the other Five Virtuosos go ballistic. 

“Don’t call me that.” Gakushuu flicks him on the nose.

“Ok, smoochums.” Karma snorts, clapping his hands on Gakushuu’s face and planting a disgustingly soft kiss on his lips. “My darling love. My fair maiden.”

“Shove off, asshole.” He sighs, then, just to be annoying, bites Karma's nose.

Karma, who apparently doesn’t process pain, raises an eyebrow with a smirk. “Kinky.” He whispers.

Ren chokes on his coffee.

Later, Karma does fulfil his promise, and the six of them spend the night photoshopping the ex-principal’s face onto various memes. And if those mysteriously make their way onto the school website the next day, Gakushuu can and will bring up multiple alibis, so don’t even try, ex-principal.

He’s never had a boyfriend before. Or a girlfriend, although those weren’t exactly anything he was interested in. Before, he was always panicking about grades, furiously working till the crack of dawn and then some. Romance wasn’t an option. Talking about it always seemed a little pointless, especially when there were things like the upcoming school festival, or the baseball game, or the tech showcase, or, or, or-

Now, he isn’t sure what to do. Karma must have had a partner before. He’s just like that. So Gakushuu is left floundering, wondering if he’s good enough, wondering when Karma will realise he’s worthless under all of the gaudy gold paint. He’s damaged, in all of the worst ways. Koro-Sensei knew that-

(“-beg, you aren’t worth it-” He spits, hand between Gakushuu’s shoulder blades to hold him down, and Gakushuu wishes he wasn’t so useless-)

-and tried to help him, but every raised hand or quick movement makes him snap, jump, run. No fleeting touch goes by without Gakushuu expecting something worse, no kiss comes without the flash of yellow behind his eyelids, and he keeps wondering whether he should break it up on his own terms before Karma does it for him.

He tells Ren, in awkward half-sentences and minimal eye contact. Still getting around this whole ‘emotions’ thing. Ren takes him for coffee, reassures him, lies to his face when he says Karma doesn’t feel like that at all. As if Ren would know. He and Karma are barely friends.

He drowns his anxiety in two little yellow pills, and falls asleep to the sound of his father detonating a grenade in a classroom full of kids.

~ ~ ~

Gakushuu was twenty four when he looked up to the sky.

A full moon floats among the stars, casting a faint silver light down on the forest path in front. He stops for a moment to take it in. It really is beautiful, all the way up there, and he wishes he had looked at it more when he was younger.

He wonders why he’d never registered that it wasn’t broken. Then again, he has a habit of seeing only what he wants to see. 

~ ~ ~

Gakushuu was somewhere between Ikeda and Ren when his father first hit him.

(“Tell me about that.”)

They’d gone to the park. Bright yellow sun, bright yellow flowers, bright yellow bees. Bright yellow whistle to start the match, bright yellow tabard with his name on. Shouts and calls, kids running and knocking into each other, storming off the field in tears with worried parents pampering at their sides.

Not Gakushuu.

(Never Gakushuu. He was 24, a degree in his hand, and all he has is an approving nod from the ex-principal, his heart in his throat because he’s not even the highest ranking student-)

No, Gakushuu plays solemnly and harshly, no fouls, but not holding back when he launches the ball at the goalie. Almost breaks the boy’s fingers. He’s small, but he’s so much older than all of these tall kids. Years mean nothing when there’s a mind of steel packed tightly into a tiny skull.

They win, of course. The captain steps forward, takes the trophy, slaps Gakushuu on the back before parading it towards his parents. The team follows his lead, breaking off to accept loving hugs from proud parents, squealing and jumping excitedly. Gakushuu stands alone, awkward, and then realises he should probably do the same.

“First place.” His father says, nodding. “As it should be. By the next match, you’ll confirm your place as captain, and then-”

“Why?”

His father stops, eyes boring into Gakushuu. Silence. 

(The teacher was never that silent. At first it made it more bearable, but then the words came, and Gakushuu couldn’t block them out-)

Gakushuu, too young to understand what a threat that is, carries on. “Why do I have to be captain? Oliver is good. The team likes him more than me.”

“Why?” His father repeats, voice calm and deadly, smile spreading wider. “Asano, I hope you aren’t thinking of staying amongst the sheep. They will dull your mind, and you know what happens to those with a dull mind…”

“They can’t cut through their enemies…” Gakushuu mumbles, pouting. He doesn’t want to be captain. There’s too many strategies, too many people, and most of all, too much work on top of everything else. How could he keep up?

“Correct.” His father turns, hands clasped behind him, and walks to the car.

They remain silent for the ride home, minus his father making a phone call. If this were any other household, that would be a warning that something is about to explode. For the Asanos, it is an ordinary occurrence.

Gakushuu’s mum's in hospital, staying overnight. He would be scared, if his father hadn’t told him fear is useless and she’ll die regardless of whether Gakushuu is afraid. So he’s not afraid, definitely not. Not at all.

(Gakushuu was eighteen, screaming at the principal for keeping him away from her in her last moments, screaming out the pain that he was never allowed to show-)

He is afraid, though, when his father goes straight past the kitchen and towards the garden. This is not an ordinary occurrence. They are supposed to eat dinner, do a quiz on chemistry, and go to their separate rooms.

“Sir?” He questions quietly.

“Come along, Asano.” His father merely calls, sliding open the door to the dark evening air. It’s cooler than before, the temperature dropping the darker it gets, and Gakushuu shivers in his muddy gear as he stands beside his father.

“What is it?”

“Go stand outside.” His father tells him, calm and friendly and everything older Gakushuu would know not to trust. 

Unfortunately for both of them, younger Gakushuu does not know or understand, and obeys. He stands in the middle of the garden, picking at his shorts, looking back at his father in the doorway. “What do I do now?”

“Do you want to be captain?” His father asks.

Gakushuu hesitates, unsure what he’s supposed to say. He’s not allowed to lie, because liars get their tongues chopped off, but he knows his father really really wants him to be captain. He doesn’t want to disappoint his father.

“It’s alright, Asano, I won’t be upset if you don’t.” He says, words as soothing as honey sliding down his skin. “Do you?”

Slowly, Gakushuu shakes his head.

“Ah.” His father’s smile drops, centipedes crawling from his mouth. “That’s a shame. You must be a sheep then, a stray sheep. Do you know what farmers do with stray sheep?”

Dread clings to Gakushuu’s back, pushing him to stumble forward, to get back inside get back inside getbackinsideorsomethingbadwillhappen-

His father’s hand shoots out, Gakushuu’s ears suddenly ringing and head pounding as he falls back onto the dirt.

“They get the dogs to round them up.”

The glass door slides closed.

Behind him, Gakushuu hears the low growling of a dog.

Not any dog. Gakushuu knows this dog, knows it well as he turns to stare into its beady eyes. He knows its brothers too, two of them on either side, hackles raised and snarls curling their lips. These are the dogs of his father’s friend, a madly right-wing military commander, obsessed with defense and security. These dogs, specially bred and trained, were whipped (literally) into the perfect attack dogs to let loose at night. They weren’t supposed to actually cause harm, only hold any intruders down, but as Gakushuu looked right at those sharp teeth, he wasn’t convinced.

The first one prowls forwards, and he screams.

(He doesn’t like these memories. They always go sour so quickly.)

His father watches from behind the glass, just as he will watch later on from his office at the school, never intervening, but always the root of the suffering. 

(He thought he was doing fine. This all seems so familiar-)

Maybe if he’d done better, maybe if he hadn’t acted out or said the wrong thing, then he wouldn’t have ended up like this. 

(-because it’s always him, isn’t it? He always has to do something, he can’t ever keep his stupid mouth shut-)

They don’t touch him, not really. They were trained well. All he gets is torn clothing, bruised skin from falling, aching legs that refuse to work the next morning. He’s fine, his father says, and sends him up to his room.

(It’s all so familiar.)

He twists his ruined tabard between small fingers, sitting in bed, eyes heavy, and he doesn’t need the pills but he takes them anyway-

(Too young-)

-and he doesn’t need the teddy bear but he holds it anyway, slipping into soft darkness.

~ ~ ~

“Tell me about that.” They say.

Gakushuu glances up, jolted back from the past, suddenly clean of blood and pain. “There’s nothing much to say.”

“That’s ok. Anything will do.”

His hands are cold, covered in dirt, and he hides them under the table so his father doesn’t see. But that was years ago. “He hit me. I was scared of him.”

“Are you scared of him now?”

He looks to the side, finds the doorway open a crack and a violet eye peering through. 

“Yes.” He says. “But I don’t think he deserves that. He’s just a man, and all men can be killed. Even those who seem indestructible.”

The violet eye widens, and slides away. Coward. His father acts like he wasn’t the one encouraging Gakushuu to take him down for all of these years.

But...

He has a feeling he’s not just talking about his father.

~ ~ ~

Gakushuu was twenty three when he saw Ren for the last time, and he didn’t even know it.

He still doesn’t. He won’t realise until he’s thirty-five, and decides to invite Ren to his wedding, only to find he’d died two years earlier in a car crash. It will make his heart bleed out, remembering the small boy who’d been so excited to be so popular, who’d supported him through the worst years of his life. He’d wish he’d seen him earlier to thank him, to apologise for everything he’d done, to just hold him for a little while and laugh about their stupid little group.

For now, though, he waves Ren off with a grin, snorting with laughter when Ren hands him a paper crown and sword ‘for fending off your pet demon’. For now, he sighs and buries his face in Ren’s shoulder, savouring the last hug they will ever share.

~ ~ ~

It all feels so familiar-

“Tell me about it.”

Gakushuu nods, praying to whatever god is out there that this is all a dream.

“Coward.”

He leans over the side of his bed and throws up, tentacles holding him.

“Does it matter?”

Gakushuu shouldn’t have expected any more.

“Go to your room, Gakushuu. Don’t ever interrupt me like that again.”

Right?

“You love it, though, don’t you?”

He can’t breathe.

“After everything he did.”

Skin on wood. Nails on wood.

“Open your eyes, Asano.”

He was only a child.

“Open your eyes, Asano.”

He was only a fucking child.

“Open your eyes, Asano.”

He thinks he might be going insane.

“Open your eyes, Asano.”

It all feels so familiar-

~ ~ ~

Psychotic breakdown.

(No, you start like this-)

Gakushuu was seventeen when he had his psychotic breakdown.

Or was it twenty?

No, because his father sits beside him, and the therapist sits opposite him, and Karma stands behind Gakushuu. He can’t have been twenty because he would have been far away from these people.

Psychotic breakdown.

It sounds so scary, doesn’t it?

Far less scary than the truth. To be told that the world you see is not the real world, and the things you think are not real thoughts, and that the kind teacher you remember is actually-

His father, ex-principal, sits beside him. His face is cold, stony. He wouldn’t understand, even if he was trying to. He thinks it is weakness, and weakness is not something excusable, nor anything that should be pandered to. If it was purely the ex-principal here, Gakushuu would be shipped off to a facility and left to rot, yet another failure.

He’s lucky he has Karma.

Karma, who listens to every word the psychiatrist says, even as Gakushuu stares down at the blurred lines on the sheet he holds. He can’t read it through the fog of his mind, but he still stares.

Psychotic breakdown.

Funny how he doesn’t even remember it.

~ ~ ~

“I’ll always be here for you. Every time you remember something, ok?”

“Ok.” Gakushuu whispers, and drops his head on Karma’s shoulder.

~ ~ ~

“Hi, my name is Gakushuu.”

“Hello, Gakushuu.” The group chorus, sitting in a circle.

Gakushuu takes a deep breath, glancing at Nagisa across from him.

“I’m twenty four years old, and when I was fifteen, a teacher took advantage of me.”

~ ~ ~

He’s not perfect, not at all. The cracks haven’t healed, not even close, and sometimes they split him wide open. Sometimes he forgets where he is, finds himself dropping to his knees in his father’s office, a skinny fourteen-year-old. Sometimes Karma brushes against his back and he ends up on the floor, gasping for breath. Sometimes he stares at his face in the mirror, and hates himself for it.

But he doesn’t have to be perfect to be ok.

There’s lots of good things in his life. With a past as bad as his, he thinks he appreciates them all the more for it. He has friends, family, a cat which curls up on his chest in the evening. A degree from MIT doesn’t have to lead to an impressive job, he learns, and so finds himself selling the odd inventions that he tinkers with at home. He goes to a group session every week, finds himself making friends there. Real friends, not helpful connections.

There’s a point in his life, when he’s lying awake at night, that he realises he is actually ok. It’s surprising, because he’s never had closure, and there’s still so much going wrong. But he is ok. He might even say he’s happy.

That night, he picks up a small bottle of yellow pills under the mattress, and dumps the whole lot down the drain.

Fuck drowning it all out. He’s got a life to live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I'm so sorry Ren...)
> 
> I'm not the best at inspirational stuff, but I want you all to take care of yourselves. Go to sleep early tonight, have a glass of water, take some time to just read a book or listen to music or go for a walk, whatever you do when you want to relax. Whatever you're worried about right now, remember that in five or ten years, it will mean nothing to you.
> 
> 'You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.'
> 
> I'll see you all whenever the next angsty fic comes out!


End file.
